


stick together and see it through

by torakowalski



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Iron Man 3 Spoilers, M/M, Phil Coulson is secretly badass, Tony and Phil's accidental friendship, minor injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/pseuds/torakowalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many places that Phil would rather be than stuck in a HYDRA base with Tony Stark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stick together and see it through

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sirona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirona/gifts).



> For Sirona for her birthday. I'm sorry it's late, bb. They just wouldn't stop bickering! <333

“Well,” says Tony Stark’s voice out of the darkness. “This is a barrel of laughs.”

Phil blinks twice and the world comes back into a slightly off-centre focus. He catalogues his body quickly - sweet taste in his mouth (chloroform), full movement in limbs - and sits up cautiously. Pain lances through his thigh, so quick and sudden that it’s only years of practice that stops him crying out.

“Are you hurt?” he asks through gritted teeth. He doesn’t ask _what happened?_ because he’s sure he’ll remember any second. He looks around. They’re alone in a small, dark room, windows high in the walls and a triple-bolted metal door four feet behind Stark.

HYDRA, Phil remembers slowly, thoughts cloudy from the drugs that knocked him out.

“Am _I_ hurt?” Stark demands. “One of us has spent the past hour napping, Coulson, and it wasn’t me.” Considering he’s dirty and his face is bruised and bloody, it lacks a little weight.

Phil frowns and tries to sit up then stops when it sends a bolt of pain through his leg. “There’s blood on your teeth,” he says.

“There’s blood on your _head_ ,” Stark counters and then they’re at an impasse. 

“Do you know where we are?” Phil asks. He rolls his shoulder until it eases some of the ache there - bruised not broken then. Good. A broken leg he can deal with; broken shoulders make fighting a lot more difficult.

“About seventeen miles outside bumfuck nowhere,” Stark tells him. Helpfully. He grins at Phil’s frown, showing Phil his bloody teeth. “No, I don’t know. They took all my tech, even my damn watch.”

Phil starts to pat himself down, checking his shoulder holster, which is unsurprisingly missing, then his ankle, shoe, and the inside of his thigh. They’re all bare.

“Yeah, they patted you down pretty thoroughly,” Stark says. “And can I just say that I had no idea you were packing so much heat.”

“Packing heat?” Phil asks, raising his eyebrows. “I had no idea we were in a 1980s cop show.”

Stark points both fingers at him and does a cheesy double click with his tongue. “They even took your taser,” he says sadly. “And I know that thing’s like a kid to you.”

“More like a pet,” Phil says, because he’s feeling off-form and he’s found the best way to combat that is by being slightly creepy. He pushes to his feet, ignoring the dizzy spin from the chloroform and way his whole right leg wants to buckle underneath him.

He starts by checking the area around the door, but it’s tightly sealed and the hinges are covered to prevent anyone unscrewing them. Then he moves onto the walls and is tapping the brickwork carefully when Stark says, “You know, I’ve done that already.”

“I have experience in this type of situation,” Phil says, distracted by what he thinks for a second is a hollow brick, but turns out just to be a bad paint job.

There’s a pause then, “Right,” Stark says. “Of course you do. Whereas I have never been in a situation like this before.”

There are very few times when Phil wants to kick himself in the head, but this is one of those. “Stark,” he says, turning around carefully.

“No, no.” Stark’s found a short length of copper wire from somewhere and is stripping it down. “You have experience of being locked in a small, dark room? That’s great. Good for you. You work that experience, Agent Argo.”

Phil slides down the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. He’ll get up again in a minute, just as soon as he can stand the idea of putting weight back on his leg. “Are you going to build yourself another arc reactor?” he asks, since sympathy will go down very badly.

Stark narrows his eyes. “I could. Would you like one? It’d look very fetching with your scar.”

Phil pats his chest and says,”You’ve never seen my scar, Stark.”

Stark looks affronted for a second that they’re not going to have an argument then shrugs, conceding the point. “I extrapolated,” he says, “from your medical records.”

Phil thinks about that for a moment. “I’ve decided to be flattered,” he says.

Stark snorts. “I wouldn’t be. I hacked them for Pepper. I don’t care about you or your recovery.”

“Of course not,” Phil agrees. And if anyone asks, he never angered his doctors by neglecting physical therapy in favour of keeping tabs on the recovery mission in California after AIM bombed Stark’s house last year.

“So.” Stark has finished stripping his wire and is now extracting his shoelaces from his shoes. “We just going to sit here and wait for a rescue?”

“That does seem the most logical option,” Phil agrees. He glances over at Stark. “Or we could just wait until they open the door and then kill them.”

Stark grins, feral and sharp. He lifts the copper and shoelace contraption. It’s curved at one end and the shoelaces are woven tightly enough together to make a fairly solid length of rope. “Or I could pick the lock right now so we can go out _there_ and kill them.” He pauses. “I’m assuming you know how to handle the killing part?”

“I do,” Phil agrees. He’d hoped Stark was building something useful, but this _is_ Stark; he could just as easily have been making a new friend.

Stark narrows his eyes. “You’re a little scary, you know that?”

Phil stands up, fingernails gripping the wall until he’s upright. He’s fairly certain that Stark’s noticed his injury, but he’s planning to pretend he hasn’t until given evidence to the contrary. “I’ve been told,” he says. He waves his hand from Stark to the door. “After you.”

***

The door opens with satisfying efficiency but the first two HYDRA agents they encounter go down annoyingly easily. Phil doesn’t actually kill them, but he does asphyxiate them for a few seconds longer than is absolutely required to knock them out.

He really doesn’t like being taken prisoner. It’s embarrassing and it’s messed up his plans for the evening.

“Okay, you really need to teach me that Xena shit,” Stark says, sounding reluctantly impressed. Then a shadow falls over him and he drops into a roll, just managing to avoid the man who jumps from the shadows, gun aimed at Stark’s face.

Phil needs to teach Stark better self-defence, he thinks, grabbing the gun arm and forcing it around and shooting the man in the shoulder with his own hand on his own gun.

Then he pulls the gun free of the man’s slack hand, lets him fall to the floor and goes to put a foot over his windpipe. He finds he can’t put his foot down with any force, not even if he tries to push through the blinding pain in his thigh. “How do we get out of here?” he asks.

The man wheezes, but Phil knows how hard he’s pressing and he knows how badly he’s hurt him. There’s no reason why he can’t get a full sentence out.

“How?” Phil repeats. He can feel himself starting to tremble slightly, cold sweat on his hairline and under his arms.

“Uh, Coulson,” Stark says, rubbing one wrist with the fingers of his other hand, twitchy. Phil glares at him and he changes track. “I think he’s dying?”

“He’s not,” Phil says, not sparing him another glance. “He might, if I knock him out so he can’t go get help though.”

The man’s eyes widen. “Two floors up,” he gasps, “keep heading left.”

“Thank you,” Phil says, lifting his foot and striding away. His stride turns into a limp after three feet, but the man on the floor can’t see that. He hears the sounds of Stark’s footsteps as he hurries to catch up. 

“You’re just going to leave him alive?” Stark asks. “And believe him?”

“He’s worried about living not chasing us,” Phil tells him. “And why would he lie?”

“Because he’s a bad guy. Bad guys lie.” Stark stops at the end of the corridor, looking both ways before crossing it with Phil. Phil’s glad he’s learned something from his time with the Avengers that doesn’t require access to his suit.

“That’s why we’re not believing him blindly.” Phil catches Stark’s arm before he can step past a curtained alcove, pushing him back into the wall just as a woman comes running out at them. This branch of HYDRA seems to be very keen on ambushes.

“These guys are annoying,” Stark says and grabs the woman around the neck before Phil can tackle her. “Do your thing.” She wriggles and kicks backwards but he doesn’t go down, which implies she missed anywhere vital.

Natasha would not be impressed; Phil’s never seen her miss a kick to the balls.

“My thing,” Phil says rolling his eyes. “It’s not a Vulcan nerve pinch.” He grabs her and smashes her face and upper body into the stone wall in front of Stark. She goes down and Stark lets go.

He drops down to his knees, searching her pockets, which is Phil is grateful for since he’s not sure he can bend. He comes up with a radio that was tucked into her shoulder holster, frowning when shards of plastic fall to the ground.

“Did you have to smash her that hard?” he asks, peering into the radio’s exposed innards.

“You can fix it,” Phil tells him confidently. “Come on.”

They make it upstairs with no more interruptions, but getting outside is another matter. The corridors are more thickly crowded and, while Phil can sustain an adrenaline rush for longer than this, his broken leg isn’t going to stay ignorable forever.

“We need a distraction,” Stark whispers. “Give me the gun and you make for the doors.”

Phil’s eyebrows pull together into a frown. “Out of the question,” he says. “You’re the asset, I’m the handler. It’s my job to make sure you get out of here.”

Stark rolls his eyes and grabs for the stolen gun in Phil’s waistband. Phil knocks his hands away but Stark hisses at him, undeterred, “You can barely stand up and I’m not helpless without my suit.”

Phil knows that. He knows what Stark achieved without his suit during the Mandarin debacle. 

“But you’re helpless without technology,” he says. It’s a low blow but it distracts Stark enough that Phil can get around him and lean out into the corridor. He shoots twice to the right, away from the door, not aiming for anything in particular, just trying to draw attention that way.

The HYDRA agents scatter and he grabs Stark’s arm, pushes him toward the exit. “Run,” he says.

“You can’t run,” Stark says back, and then grabs Phil’s arm in turn when Phil would have let go of him, pulling him along with him. This wasn’t Phil’s plan, but there’s no denying that he can get along a lot faster while half leaning into Stark’s shoulder.

A couple of people recover enough to shoot at them, but they’re almost to the door by then. Phil turns and shoots but Stark won’t let him stop and then they’re bursting through the front doors into the sun.

***

After a half hour of walking through what turns out to be densely forested land, and with no transport in sight, Phil has to admit defeat. “Stark,” he says. “I need to stop.”

He knows that Stark won’t be surprised, since he’s been shooting Phil worried looks ever since they started, but he still appreciates that Stark says, “Are you sure?”

“Ten minutes,” Phil tells him. “Then we’ll keep going.”

Stark leads them off the path they’ve been following and deeper into the woods. He sits down with his back to a large conifer tree and Phil joins him there, stretching his leg out gratefully. He needs to find something to make into a splint and then he’d be able to get along much better.

Stark rolls onto his knees beside him and clicks his fingers over Phil’s leg. “Roll up your pant leg,” he says. “Let me have a look. Not that I want to see that much of your naked flesh,” he adds quickly.

Phil gives him what he hopes is a quelling enough look. “I can’t think of anything I’d less rather do, Stark,” he says. “And since when are you a doctor?”

“I am a long-time connoisseur of WebMD,” Stark says primly. He tips his head up to the sun, like they’re on a cosy picnic. “I always thought it’d be cool to be a doctor.”

“Really?” Phil asks, interested despite himself. Stark would probably have cured cancer by now, if he’d tried. “What stopped you?”

“The people,” Stark says, with what Phil thinks is a fake shudder. “When you fuck up in engineering, you can rip out the parts and build something new. Society frowns on doing that with humans.”

Phil laughs even though he doesn’t mean to and it jars his aching body. “You’d make a terrifying super-villain,” he says.

“Thanks,” Stark says back. He prods Phil in the arm with the tip of his finger. “Doing okay there?”

“Seven minutes,” Phil tells him. He’s determined to keep going; they can’t stop here, but he wishes he could take a nap instead. “If I pass out, I need you to promise to slap me until I wake up.”

“Gladly,” Stark says immediately. “Then wait, no, you’ll wake up and ninja me.”

Phil would argue that, but it’s possibly true. “Okay,” he says, forcing himself more upright and his eyes to stay open. “Good point.”

“It is?” Stark asks suspiciously.

Phil waves a hand. He knows that Stark expects banter from him on good days and pointed threats on bad ones, but his heart isn’t in it. 

Stark gives him a long look. It’s maybe slightly worried, but Phil isn’t sure. “You know,” he says, “cosy as this is, this is not where I want to be right now. Do you know where I’d prefer to be? I can give you a clue: it involves Pepper, some bubble bath and an entire quart of - ”

“No, stop. I don’t want to know.” He knows Stark’s just trying to distract him, but there are limits to the things Phil wants to picture. “How’s the radio coming along?”

“Radio? Oh!” Stark produces the battered radio from his back pocket and starts to fiddle. “I will get this baby running in no time.” He hums thoughtfully under his breath. “I know you don’t want to hear it but god, Coulson, the plans Pepper and I had tonight. I’ve been _dreaming_ about those plans.”

“For fuck’s sake, Stark, you’re not the only one who had a date tonight,” Phil snaps. He knows that he says it because he wants to shut Stark up but he’s going to blame the pain. Or the chloroform. Or a sudden insanity.

“Really?” Stark asks, eyebrows climbing. He grins, fingers still flying over the radio but attention on Phil. “Your lovely cellist back in town? Can we meet her, this time? I can hook you up with the best table in town, if you...”

“Not the cellist,” Phil says, since he wouldn’t put it past Stark to find her and make Phil’s life very complicated. “Someone new.”

“Oooh,” Stark says, like he’s five. He flutters his eyebrows at Phil. “Are we gonna talk girls, Agent? Don’t we need cocktails and manicures?”

“I think the stereotype is beers and football for talking about girls,” Phil says. 

“Eh, I eschew stereotypes,” Stark says easily. 

“And I’m not talking about a girl,” Phil says, then can’t make himself regret it.

Stark actually waits a beat before answering. “I’m trying to decide,” he says eventually, “whether this is one of those ‘my lady is a woman not a girl’ things or whether you just came out to me. Because that second one seems unlikely.”

“I seem unlikely to be bisexual?” Phil asks.

“Nope, I’ve got no opinion about that. Just it seems unlikely that, if you were, you’d tell _me_.” Stark looks at him, obviously waiting to see if Phil says anything else. “Not that the idea of you having your own personal Brokeback Mountain moment isn’t hilarious.”

Phil decides he’s probably said much more than he should have, so he stays quiet. He focuses on watching Stark’s deft fingers move over the radio, instead, until he notices the little sideways looks Stark keeps throwing at him.

“What?” he sighs. This is why he never mentions having a private life; people find it far too fascinating.

“Nothing,” Stark says, like he’s affronted at the thought. Something sparks under his fingers and he jumps. “Oh hey, look at that. Knew I could do it.”

Phil leans forward, resting his weight on his left knee. “Is it working?”

Stark hums and doesn’t say anything.

Phil tries to be patient. He’s a patient man; there’s just something about Stark that always makes him forget that. 

“Give me a minute,” Stark says, as though he can feel Phil’s anxiousness coming at him in waves.

It’s more than a minute. It’s more than the ten minutes that Phil promised himself they would only sit here for. But then Stark makes a crowing sound of delight and thrusts the radio at Phil.

“Who the fuck is this?” asks a very familiar and very welcome voice.

“Sir,” Phil says. “We have a situation.”

“Coulson?” Fury barks. “Where the hell are you? Disappearing like this is not acceptable behaviour for a senior agent.”

Phil smiles even though he can feel the adrenaline leaking out of him and he’s starting to ache all over. “Missed you too, Marcus,” he says. “I’m with Stark. Not sure where we are, but we’d like a ride out.”

“Are you hurt?” Fury asks. “What am I saying? Of course you are. You just live to bring my blood pressure up.”

“Just keeping you on your toes,” Phil says. “Can you trace us?”

“Already on it,” Fury says. “Keep the radio on, find somewhere wide enough for a ‘jet to land. We’ll be there asap.”

“Thanks, sir,” Phil says and hands the radio back to Stark. “I’m not going to ask how you knew the code to access Director Fury’s private channel.”

Stark taps his nose. “I know everything.” He frowns. “Except for who you’re dating. Unless it’s Fury? Tell me it’s not Fury.”

“Of course it’s not,” Phil says, regardless of how funny it might be to let Stark think otherwise.

“Hmm.” Stark hums and gets to his feet. He holds his hand down to Phil, who doesn’t want to take it, but isn’t stupid enough not to. “What’s with the Marcus business?”

Phil gets his balance and lets go of Stark’s hand. God, he’s tired. “It’s a long story,” he says. “And… Wait. Stop talking. Can you hear that?”

Stark goes quiet, listening along with Phil. There’s definitely an engine rumbling toward them.

“Quinjet?” he whispers, not sounding hopeful.

Phil shakes his head. “No. Too soon.” 

“Run or fight?” Stark asks. He looks Phil over critically. “Normally I’d vote fight, but…”

“You can’t fight an engine without your suit,” Phil says, not prepared for Stark to worry about him. Even though Phil probably does look bad enough to be worried about. He pulls the gun out of his pocket. “Keep down.”

Stark ducks down into the undergrowth but Phil finds that that’s beyond what his leg will let him do right now, so he presses his chest to a tree and hopes. A jeep rolls slowly past, every seat taken up by heavily armed HYDRA agents.

It doesn’t stop.

They let it get far enough away that they can’t hear the engine anymore before Stark blows out a breath. “Thank god they’re too lazy to get out and walk,” he scoffs. “Whoever the HYDRA version of Fury is can’t be nearly as scary.”

“No one’s as scary as Fury,” Phil says, which earns him a surprised chuckle from Stark. They start walking again - or limping, but Phil’s feeling charitable, he will call what he’s doing walking. 

“As a matter of purely scientific interest,” Stark says, “do we work with this person you may or may not be sleeping with?”

“I said dating,” Phil corrects easily. “I never mentioned sex.”

Stark makes a _ffft_ noise. “You’re a fine hunk of man, Coulson, don’t sell yourself short. I’m sure Mystery Man - or Mystery Woman - throws you down on the bed on the regular. Or desks. Do you prefer to be thrown on desks?”

“I prefer to do the throwing,” Phil says, smiling to himself at the noise Stark makes.

“All right, changing the subject,” Stark says quickly.

Phil nods. “Good idea. Or, here’s a better idea: let’s find a place for the ‘jet to land and then we won’t have to talk about _anything_.”

“Coulson, I’m wounded.” Stark clutches a hand to his chest. “You know how much I value your scintillating conversation.”

“How about over there?” Phil suggests, pointing to higher ground through the trees. 

They head up the incline toward what looks like it might be open space. Phil can feel himself getting slower and slower but he has a goal in mind, so he’s sure he can get there. Then the ground dips unexpectedly, he misses a step, comes down heavily on his right and can’t hold make a sound that’s much closer to a scream than he’s comfortable with.

“For fuck’s sake,” Stark says angrily, grabbing Phil around the waist and holding him up, while he pants through the pain. “I have never met anyone as stubborn as you and I’ve met _myself_.”

Phil doesn’t have the breath to speak, but if he did, he’d tell Stark that it’s not stubbornness; he just hates relying on anyone for help. But he doesn’t have the breath; he barely has the oxygen to keep conscious. He leans into Stark’s support, even though it grates.

“Come on, along we go, off we go, one foot in front of the other.” Stark keeps talking as they make their way, words Phil doesn’t listen to, but the old familiar irritation helps to ground him. 

It’s a relief to get to the top of the hill and find a square strip of ground, not wide enough for a plane to land on, but Phil trusts every SHIELD pilot to be able to land a ‘jet there. Especially the one he’s almost sure they’ll send.

“Excellent.” Stark claps his hands. “So, where are they?”

“Have some patience,” Phil tells him, but that turns out to be a wasted effort, because a dark speck appears on the horizon at exactly that moment.

Stark smirks at him. “You were saying?”

If Phil weren’t a gentleman and a SHIELD agent, he’d flip Stark off, right now. They watch the speck get closer and resolve itself into a quinjet, one of the older models. Phil smiles even before Stark groans.

“That’s Barton, isn’t it? I made the upgraded ‘jets so much better than that old scrap of junk. Why won’t he use one of the new ones?” he complains.

“He has a long history with that one,” Phil says, distracted by watching Clint circle once then twice before coming in to land. Most of Clint’s history with it involves almost bleeding out in it, but Clint seems to be attached.

As soon as it touches down, the door swings open and Stark and Phil set off toward it. They get half way across the clearing before the bullets start flying.

“Fuck,” Stark curses, ducking before Phil can push him down. 

“Are you honestly surprised?” Phil shouts over the roar of the engine. “This is how every Avengers’ mission goes.”

“Not every one, sir,” Clint yells from where he’s appeared in the doorway. He looks Phil over critically, frowning. “You okay?”

“Perfect.” 

Clint’s shooting arrows into the trees now, which makes it easier for Stark and Phil to reach him without getting shot. Phil wants to fall into one of the seats and finally give in to clutching his leg and whimpering, but that’s still not an option.

He puts one hand on the roof of the jet to keep his balance and the other on the side of Clint’s bow, says, “Get back in the pilot seat.”

Clint looks at him, looks at the bow, makes what would normally be a really hilarious expression and hands it over, swinging the quiver onto Phil’s shoulder.

“What?” Stark splutters, but Phil uses his free hand to pass over the pistol they stole earlier so he shuts up and starts firing instead. 

Phil’s a passable shot with a bow. He knows how to hold it and how to fire it but, most importantly, the quiver control is coded to Phil’s thumbprint as well as Clint’s so he can actually reload. Not that it’s called reloading. Phil won’t be using that term to Clint.

Stark would probably do better, considering how long he’s spent working on schematics for new ones, but he can at least aim the gun in the right direction and cause a general sense of mayhem with it. Which is all they need at the moment, just to hold HYDRA off until Clint can get wheels up.

Phil fires off an arrow, jumping a little when it explodes just past the line of trees.

“Hey, don’t waste those ones,” Clint shouts, fingers moving fast over the controls.

“You changed the selection mechanism,” says Phil, who’d been aiming for a regular arrow.

“Like to keep things interesting,” Clint tells him, as if Phil doesn’t already know that, and then the door is closing and Phil can finally, _finally_ sit down.

“He let you use his _bow_ ,” Stark says, incredulous, following Phil down into a seat and buckling himself in. He huffs when Phil’s slow with his own buckle, leaning over and doing it for him.

“I’m his handler,” Phil says. He leans back in his chair, leg stretched out and is very proud of himself for not descending into a litany of swearing. 

Stark doesn’t answer as they take off, when he finally does, it’s to say, “Yes, you are,” very slowly. Phil looks over at him, already prepared to tell him that whatever he’s assumed, he’s wrong. Stark doesn’t look gleeful though, just contemplative. “I could make a pun about _handling_ right now, but I’m a better man than that.”

“I’m not sleeping with Barton,” Phil says, quietly in the hope that Clint won’t hear him.

“No.” Now Stark’s smile turns wicked. “You’re _dating_ him.”

“Stark,” Phil says but Stark just shakes his head.

“Who am I gonna tell?” he asks, spreading his hands. He turns and calls to Clint, “Yo, Barton? You got a med kit lying around here somewhere?”

“Under the front seat,” Clint says, sounding worried. “How bad’s Coulson hurt?”

“He’s fine,” Stark says, which saves Phil having to. He leans forward and pulls out the first aid kit, rifling through it and making disparaging noises. “Coulson, you want a band aid? How about a blister pad? What the fuck, who even stocked this?”

“There’s morphine,” Phil says, which earns him a sharp look. “In those little pouches.”

Stark finds one and pulls it out. “You want?” he asks.

In any other circumstances, Phil would say no, but he’s been walking on a broken leg for over an hour and there is only so much he can pretend to be a super soldier before he remembers he’s just a regular human. Besides, they’re on their way back to base and, if he’s got to trust someone to look after things while he can’t, he’d pick Clint and, weird as it is to admit, he’d also pick Stark.

“I do,” Phil says. He reaches for the syrette. “I can do it.”

Stark waves him away. “I’ll do it.” He snaps the cap and stabs it into Phil’s bad leg, not giving him any time to tense up.

“Shit,” Phil breathes. He doesn’t thank Stark for not warning him, but he doesn’t berate him either. The morphine starts to kick in quickly, the pain in Phil’s leg easing and his brain slowly turning foggy and indistinct. He doesn’t react as badly as some people to morphine, but it always makes him sleepy.

He’s distantly aware of Stark leaning close doing something which may be checking Phil’s vitals. Phil wants to bat at him and remind him again that he’s not a doctor, but he can’t see the point.

“Wow,” Stark says, laughing. “Morphine makes you mellow. What are you like on weed?”

“Hungry,” Phil answers honestly, smiling faintly when Stark laughs. 

Stark pats him on the shoulder. “You’re okay, Coulson,” he says. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Tell anyone?” Phil asks, thinking about Clint.

“That you’re secretly kind of cool,” Stark says. Then he looks where Phil’s looking, which turns out to be at the back of Clint’s head. “I won’t tell anyone about your hotass superhero boyfriend either.”

Phil finally lets his eyes close. “I know,” he says. “Trust you.” And then, if Stark says anything else, he’s asleep and he doesn’t hear it.

***

Phil wakes up in SHIELD medical, which is better than waking up in a regular hospital, but only just.

The morphine fuzz has been replaced by something quieter that numbs his leg but leaves his mind clearer. Thank god for that; he has a vague memory of Stark talking to him before he passed out and can only hope whatever he replied wasn’t _too_ humiliating.

“Hey,” he hears and turns his head to find Clint sitting backwards on a chair next to the bed. 

“Hi,” Phil says and wishes he could blame drugs for the way that seeing Clint makes him smile. He didn’t lie to Stark, he hasn’t been sleeping with Clint, but today was going to be their sixth date and he’d had hopes.

Clint glances up at the camera in the corner then slides his hand along the bed covers and lays his hand over Phil’s. “Running around on a broken leg, sir?” he asks, arching an eyebrow.

Phil arches one back. “I could hardly let Stark have all the fun without me.”

Clint laughs, squeezing Phil’s hand. “He’s out there, bullying the doctors into releasing you into his care.”

“ _His_ care?” Phil splutters. “I think I’d rather stay here.”

“Yeah, he’s just gonna steal you and make you live in the Tower until you can walk again. He said I can do the actual _caring_.” He ducks his head suddenly, shy in that surprising way Clint sometimes gets. “If that’s okay?”

Phil runs his fingers over Clint’s knuckles, wishing he could kiss him here. “I’m already warming to this plan,” he says, “but you’re in charge of protecting me from any robots wielding medical supplies.” He’s about to add what Stark told him about considering a medical career, but he’s fairly certain Stark told him that in confidence.

“I’ll protect you from the robots,” Clint promises. His eyes are bright and happy in a way that makes Phil feel warm all over. 

The door crashes open and Stark stands there, hands on his hips, glowering at them both. “God,” he says, “I hope that’s not you trying to be subtle. I can see the cartoon hearts from here.”

“Shut up, Stark, no one invited you in here,” Phil says automatically, looking away from Clint. Clint’s blushing slightly and Phil doesn’t want to think about whether he is too.

Stark grins at him. “Nope, you love me,” he says. “We’ve bonded. You can’t deny it.”

“I definitely can,” Phil says, but he doesn’t. He looks at Stark expectantly. “Did you get the paperwork?”

Stark waves some papers at Phil. Phil decides not to study them too closely, in case Stark’s bluffing. Phil _really_ wants to get out of here. 

His leg’s been put in a cast and they’ve removed his pants, so Phil shoos Stark out of the room before he gets out of bed. He thinks about shooing Clint out too, but Clint gives him a mutinous look so Phil lets him stay and help even if this really isn’t the way he was hoping Clint would see his underwear tonight.

Stark presents him with crutches when Clint supports Phil as limps out of the medical room. Phil takes them gratefully and doesn’t ask where he got them from. The corridor is suspiciously free of medical personnel; there’s usually at least one person trying to press useless advice on Phil. 

It’s possible that there are some advantages to having Tony Stark on his side, terrifying an idea as that is. 

“C’mon, Agent Hopalong,” Stark says, turning in a swirl of leather jacket and ridiculous shades, which he does not need to be wearing indoors. “We have to go tell the rest of the gang about our thrilling adventure.”

Phil leans into Clint’s side a little even though he doesn’t technically need to, not with the crutches. “Can we make a daring escape?” he asks.

Clint bumps him carefully. “Later,” he says. “I’m going to get you all alone in one of his super fancy bedrooms first.”

“Oh.” Phil swallows, stops long enough to turn and really look at him. “Maybe going to the Tower isn’t such a bad idea.”

“Thought you would see it that way,” Clint says and there’s so much promise in his tone that, broken leg or not, Phil is determined to make sure to live up to it.

“Coulson!” Stark yells. He’s reached the other end of the corridor and is now waving his hands at them, looking and sounding impatient. “Stop… doing whatever you’re doing with your face right now and limp faster.”

“Yes, Mr Stark, right away, Mr Stark,” Phil mutters under his breath.

Clint laughs, keeping pace with Phil until they reach Stark, who makes exaggerated _finally_ motions with his hands then sets off again, leading the way through the double door and toward the bank of elevators like a king leading his army.

/End


End file.
